Surprisingly all valves appear ok although there has been the lightest of touches as a piston was "loose" from a lack of big end bearing support - may get away with a polish on the crank. Looking into steel rods etc for the rebuild and spend some money now rather than the end of the season. Maxspeeding rods are cheap and despite their Chinese origin they seem to be ok. A few adverse comments on the web when they first appeared but nothing substantiated. Many comments on various sites praise them as worth the money. I'll take opinion from Andy of Classic and Race before shelling out.

We'll start the rebuild process this week and get Andy to oversee the job. He'll probably help out but he is busy with cars for Goodwood Revival at the moment.

Looking on the bright side - every cloud has a silver lining - the race was not part of our championship and this may help us get a bit closer speed wise to the others in our class.

Sorted engine on the cheap in the end (machining, dummy builds, etc was going to take too long). New bearings, cam belt, gaskets, sump bolts etc as only 2 rounds to do first of which was yesterday at Lydden. Suspension jammed rock solid on front. Bounced my way through qualifying - only did a handful of laps as not keen on dentist bills. Race 1 - suspension still solid but front height now at reasonable level, dropped tyre pressure to try and take out some bounce. Got a good start and nipped up to 4th in class but was demoted to 5th on lap 2 as an Escort came by under the red flag. A Seat had rolled at the end of lap one. Restart even better and back up to 4th with Escort in close behind. Despite having the slower car I was not going to make it easy for him and indeed managed to fend him off for the whole 12 laps. Race 2 very wet and still bouncing about despite dropping pressures even more but took third at the flag not far behind the second placed car.

We have moved up to 7th overall and are 2nd in class. With a score to drop we'll still be in top ten and can finish no lower than 13th overall and 2nd in class.

Engine felt really strong. Hoped to get it on the rollers before the race but things conspired against us and we ran out of time. Should be able to get it done once the suspension is sorted.

We are seriously looking at buying a set for the end of season rebuild. Andy (Classic and Race) has looked at pics of the items and can see some areas on the rods that may need a bit of fettling but nothing excessive. He thinks that the meeting point of the flat for the bolt head where the big end joins it could be a minor issue but no more than with other aftermarket rods. The stumbling block is their price. They are cheap. Prices on the web have them at £209 - £249 delivered. Take off a fiver for p&p and then take off up to £100 for a set of ARP bolts you have a set of steel rods for about £100 - £120. That is very cheap and rightly or wrongly it sets off alarm bells. You only get what you pay for they say.

Pitch them against a set of Saenz, Arrow or Carrillo rods. Similar spec but £800 upwards. Are the Chinese hyping up their rods spec or are the other companies making a big margin on their sales?

Even a set of standard rods will cost more than Maxspeeding by the time you have had them lightened/balanced properly.

Which brings me onto something Andy drew to my attention. BX 16v rods are different in shape and weight. We have several sets of std rods and he started weighing them. Each rod in the the sets was within a couple of grams of the others. But rods in one set were nearly 20 grams each lighter. The rods although weighing similar amounts to each other were different thicknesses and some were broader on the beam as it joined the big end. Small end and big end weights varied so they were not balanced end to end to the tolerances expected.

To anyone wanting a race engine you need to find someone you trust to deliver what you want power wise but also within budget. If (when) we buy the rods and Andy says they are not up to scratch then we'll look at an alternative.

Entry list out for Brands. 8 in our class which puts us 8th on paper as the others are all def quicker based on past performances. The engine felt really good at Lydden but unable to gauge how good with the front end bouncing all over the place - Jack can't believe the car got through the meeting without breaking a driveshaft. Points wise 8th is not a lot of good for the championship so really need to get into the top five to have a chance against guys in other classes who are also fighting for a top ten finish.